Finished a couple of good reads the last couple of weeks. The first was Rob Walker's Letters From New Orleans. Walker writes the "Consumed" column in the NYTimes Magazine and used to write for Slate. I've been reading his stuff for a while and I really enjoyed this. It reads like a good blog but with more substance and research. He covers many of the standard New Orleans topics with insight and also delves into some lesser known, but just as interesting, stuff like Ernie K-Doe and his Mother in Law Lounge and the history of the song "St. James Infirmary." Made me wish that I too could just decide to pack up and move to New Orleans for a while. Someday maybe.
After reading a chapter or two at a time for a few months, I finally finished Rick Atkinson's In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat in Iraq. Atkinson was an embedded journalist with the 101st Airborne and follows them, focusing mostly on their leadership and General David Petraeus in particular, from the buildup to the war through the fall of Baghdad. It makes for an ironic read knowing what has come to pass in the time since--they had no idea the worst was yet to come. One realizes just how much George and Donald and the boys got wrong. Did I miss the repercussions? No, I didn't think so. We don't seem to give a damn really.I also read the first Harry Potter book. I had determined that I would give the whole thing a pass a long time ago, but it was given to me as a gift so I read it. It was an entertaining children's book. The self-perpetuating marketing monstrosity that it has become is something else entirely I think.
